Shaping Plant Stress Memories

Although plants lack a cellular immune system and central nervous system, they can retain memory of previously encountered stresses, which improves their ability to resist recurrent episodes of the same stress.

Previous research by the Ton lab has shown that biochemical changes to the DNA of stressed plants drive the establishment and maintenance of this stress memory.

However, how these epigenetic modifications prime stress-specific defence genes, and how the memory is reset in the absence of stress, remains unknown.

Supported by new evidence for an epigenetic key regulator of stress memory, this PhD project will address these fundamental questions and generate new knowledge about the role of epigenetics in plant phenotypic plasticity.

In doing so, the project will not only unravel an essential mechanism of plant survival but will also generate valuable new insights to facilitate development of future crop protection technologies.

The PhD project is closely aligned to a 4-year BBSRC industry-partnership-award project with an international crop breeding company, which aims to develop new and more sustainable methods of disease protection in vegetable crops.

Accordingly, the student will take part in a diverse and multidisciplinary research team that translates basic discoveries into real-world applications to improve sustainable food production.